![]() It is one of science’s most profound insights that all life on Earth is related by deep and fundamental bonds of kinship at the molecular level – from the humble blue-green cyanobacteria to the whales whose songs echo in the ocean deeps from the smallest flower to the mightiest redwood from the tiniest free-floating plankton to the human beings whose six-billion-strong civilization makes the planet glow at nighttime. They hardly seem alive, so different is their kind of life from ours: slow, weathered, endlessly patient, watching the years pass around them like falling snow settling, more akin to the earth and the mountains than to flesh and blood creatures like ourselves.īut they are alive, and like all living things, they must inevitably die. To living beings as short-lived and fragile as humans, a full-grown tree seems to be the epitome of strength and stability: its roots delving deep into the earth, its massive trunk towering high overhead, rising to a spreading green canopy of leaves or needles that endure sun, rain and wind. My tree cannot be restored, and if another were planted, it would be many years before it grew tall enough that it could be seen from my window.Īs the night comes and the sky fades to blue and black, are the stacked branches of my tree making a last effort to photosynthesize? Are the leaves on the cut logs still drinking the fading light, still interweaving the sugar chains they manufacture with their last reserves of minerals drawn up hours ago from the now-disembodied roots? Is my tree even aware of its death, in some dim vegetable way, or will its individual parts continue to patiently perform the tasks they were grown for until decay claims them at last? ![]() Life that survived the changing of the seasons, the drought of summers, the frost of winters and the storm winds of autumn did not survive the bite of oiled metal teeth. ![]() In a few hours, the patient growth of decades was destroyed. When I came home and discovered the devastation, there was a lone squirrel scampering in confusion across the ground, among the remains of the tree. Outside my window now, there is nothing but the rundown black-shingled roof of the house next door. In a single afternoon, in a roar of dust and heat and chainsaw smoke, my tree was reduced to a stack of cut logs and a scattering of fallen leaves. I would look out at it often as I sat at my computer to write. In this urban place, I appreciated having its living green outside my window. When the sun blazed brightly, its leafy branches would break up the light into a green and gold dapple, and when it rained, its leaves would drip with rainwater. It provided a much-needed buffer from my neighbors, and it was a welcome place to rest my eyes when they became tired of asphalt black and cement grey. It wasn’t much, not old growth or a giant, but I liked it there. ![]() When I awoke this morning, there was an elm tree growing outside my window. (Note: This essay was originally posted November 15, 2003.) ![]()
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